Thursday morning… I’ve had better.

So this blog post is cutting inline. It’s slotting in before my long and detailed review of last weekend. I’m still in the process of writing up about Clockenflap Festival, but I felt I needed to get this rant out the way before I can move on! This will be short, but not so sweet…

I’ve been ill. Not on my deathbed ill, just, not 100% well. I feel like such a non-Brit complaining and moaning about having a cold and being a little “under the weather”, after the weather well and truly was over me on Saturday. Yesterday morning (Wednesday 30th November) I got out of bed, turned on my gas tank and put the kettle on. It was a struggle to get up and even more of a struggle to keep standing, and to stop myself from feeling like I was going to hurl… It got to 6.30am and I realised I could not actually make it in the shower and out the door to get to work. So, for the 2nd time this semester, I had to message my co-teacher Vivian, and let her know I would be in sometime before lunch, but definitely not for the first bell of class. Thankfully, I didn’t have lesson until after lunch, so I was just missing out on “office time”. Back to bed I went (finally with a duvet and decent mattress topper) and I slept and got some rest before making it into work for morning snack time at 9.45am.

Thank god mum’s parcel from Switzerland arrived the other day too! I now have lots of Christmas goodies, and some cold and flu stuff to keep me dosed up. This morning was still a wreck though. I woke up, still feeling groggy as hell, went to turn on my gas (outside in the little scullery area) and there was my unwelcome house guest. Mr Rat [who super casually walked into my living room while I was watching TV the other day] was sat chilling on a pipe. So there I was. 6.15am in my dressing gown, trapped in my kitchen, not able to go and turn on the gas to have a shower as I was in a Wild West style showdown with a bloody rat. I banged the door to try and scare it off, and he just ran further around the pipes, still on my little outside area. I’d tried to block the small gap I guess it has been squeezing in and out of, I’d used an old tea towel, and I looked up to check if it was still in place. It had been pulled, bitten, and torn to shreds! This little bastard was cocky, and seriously determined to get into my home.

I made some more loud noises (at this point not caring about my possibly sleeping neighbours) but it seemed pretty content just sat there. It would not budge no matter what racked I made. Painfully aware of the time, I decided just to go out there and join the rat for the few seconds it takes to turn on the gas. I closed the doors and wedged another tea towel into any gap I could find and made my way to have a very rushed shower.

No hot water. No gas. No nothing.

As if my morning wasn’t fun enough, now I was faced with the choice of having 4 day old unwashed hair, or possibly make myself more ill by having a cold shower. I went to check the valves were all in the right positions (rat still there), and tried again about 5 times., praying, hoping (and swearing a lot) that the flames would eventually kick in. To my absolute surprise and luck, I managed to get about 2 minutes of lukewarm water, enough to wash my hair over the bath, turning the water on and off throughout the process. By this time it was about 6.50am and I needed to be out the house in less than 15 minutes. Knowing full well that if I headed to work with wet hair in this weather it would be the death of me. I messaged Kyle and asked to use his hairdryer before catching the bus. He was happy to help and, frankly, surprised I didn’t own one myself (maybe that should be a priority this weekend…) Grabbing a yogurt and some crackers I threw my things into my bag, got changed, and went to wish my rat pal goodbye before heading out to work.

I arrived at Kyles (literally about a 30 second walk from my front door) and realised I’d forgotten tissues and lip-balm, two necessities for cold/flu season! So back I went to mine, and eventually made it to the bus stop. We obviously missed the bus we would usually get, but honestly, I’m impressed I made it in at all! And I wasn’t even late…

So. That was my Thursday morning and 1st day of December. In all the stress this morning I didn’t even get to open the first window of my advent calendar. I guess it’s something to look forward to when I finally get home from work tonight, probably at about 8.45pm…

You’re having a crap start to the last month of a weird year Charlie. I’m sure it will end on a high though and lets just see what 2017 brings. Sending all of my love to you XX
P.s. set a trap for Mr Ratty 😉